The present invention relates generally to communications, and more particularly, to a system and a method for analyzing a user""s collection of communications, such as electronic mail messages, telephone messages, voicemails, instant messaging dialogues and telephone logs to determine the identity of contacts within the communications, the relative priority of the contacts within the communications and any relationships between the contacts themselves and between the contacts and the user.
The ever-growing variety of mass communication devices and services such as wireless telephones, pagers, portable computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), set top boxes, electronic mail, and instant messaging among others, has exponentially increased the number of different types of communications that one may receive on a daily basis. As a result, it has become very difficult to track one""s personal and professional contacts since after even a short period of time, one could have hundreds of unique communications, such as electronic mail messages and voicemails to sort through.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to be able to easily analyze a collection of communications, such as electronic mail messages, to determine the identity of one""s personal and professional contact, the relative priorities of these contacts and any existing relationship between and among these contacts.
The invention provides a method for processing user communications to determine identities of contacts within the communications, to prioritize the relative importance of the contacts identified and to establish any relationships between the contacts themselves and between the contacts and the user. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of receiving a plurality of communication files, wherein the communication files include a plurality of different contacts, reviewing the plurality of communication files to determine contact identities, contact priorities and relationships and providing an analysis of the communication files, wherein the analysis provides the identities of contacts identified in the communication files, the relative importance of contacts relative to one another and any relationships between two or more contacts.
In the present invention, a contact may be refer to an individual person, a company, a group of individual people, an organization, an electronic mail listing or any combination or variations of the aforementioned. Contacts may be related to a user""s personal life, workplace or other social networks. Typically, the user will specify a directory, folder or other repository which contains the communications, such as the electronic mail messages to be analyzed. A communications or message processor will receive the communications and from these communications, determine at least the identity of the contacts and their relative priority to one another to the user. For example, contacts which engage in frequent, reciprocal communications with the user are rated or assigned a higher priority than contacts which only engage in one-way communications with the user. Though the sheer number of communications a contact may have with the user is relevant in determining the contact priority, the reciprocal nature of the communications is more indicative as to the importance of the communications.
In one embodiment of the present invention, contacts which are frequently mentioned or xe2x80x9cco-mentionedxe2x80x9d within communication may also be classified as being related to a similar grouping or network in relation to the user. For example, co-workers who frequently copy each other on electronic mail message may be considered to be part of a single grouping of contacts.